Christ is that in human nature, and does that in it and through it which can stanch the wound and arrest the spell of sin. He had always been coming into the world — a fact testified by the prophets {V"-). The great Lawgiver spoke of Ilim (.')■"'); Abraham desired a fuller revela- tion (8^^) ; all the Scriptures testified to Him (5'"). Nevertheless, the.se operations of the Logos, so long as con<lucted along these lines, were in- sufficient to secure conviction until He came into closer contact with humanity, was more obviously manifest in human tlesh, and came into actual living personal union with the disturbed and im- perilled roots of our mind, heart, and will. He thus provides a tanij^ble object of faith. He renews the eye of faitii, and .supplies the motive of search. He is the shield from condemnation, the deliverance from ^^Tath, the emanciiiation from boudaj;;e. He can ' save ' from the malicious de- struction of alien powers (10'"), from the deadly pangs of unsatisfied hunger (6*"); and He can give the food of which if a man eats he shall never die. Lhider the three often quoted metaphors, salva- tion covered all the need of man and all the capaci- ties of the Infinite— Like, Lioiit, and Love.
There is no salvation if we do not consciously possess another LIFE than this ever -vanish- ing, always -threatened earthly existence. The heavenly life is not menaced by the million perils of earth and the organized hate of hell, by the cruel temptations of time and sense, and will bo finally emanciiiated from the fear which hath torment. Life in its per|>etuity is independent of the conditions of death, it is vrritiihU (answering, i.e., to its ideal and archetype), it is eternal. The purport of the Fourth (Jospel was to give concrete proof that Jesus ha* the power to establish the indispensable conditions and execute the initial stages of this everla.sting life. Jesus began by declaring that He would build up the temple of His iKxly after men lunl destroyed it (ch. 2), and that those who l>elieved In Him should receive this life at His hands (3"- "•"). Heselected the l>aUied man as an imiige of the metluxl ami need of the conferring of life, and He exercised the function along the lines of the divine Father's life-giving work (r)-'"). He sustained human life by creative forces ngninst various perils of hunger and storm, with ex|ireiia parabolic instruction aa to the de-
JOHN, GO?PEL OF
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
liveiaricea of the inner life from greater peril, and tlml by Ui3 own imperial niaiulate. The whole of ch. C is one continuous illustration of how the In- carnate One could give eternal life, how those who would feed on Uim (on His flesh and blood) should die no more for ever. The whole lesson of His unique relation to life, and His power over death, is once more given in ch. 11, where no barriers block the access of His eternal power and (Joilliead as the Son of the Father's love, and as working out the will of the Eternal. He unriddles death and takes away its sting. In the night of the passion He says, ' because I live, ye shall live ' ; and the evangelist tells us that all that has been written by huiiself was to make evident to us, that by believing we might have life through His name (20=').
A second analogue and interpretation of vumjpta pervading the Fourth Gospel is LIGHT. It is the antithesis of darkness, both moral and in- tellectual. Darkness is dependent on two con- ditions, absence of illumination and deficiency or destitution of the power of vision, and in both respects He fuUils the functions of light. He is 'the li^'ht of the world' (8", and cf. 9°), the forth- atreaniing of the Divine Glory ( 12*'- *•), the image of His substance, 'the truth' (aXrideio.) concerning God, the full expression of the archetypal man, the embodiment of the normal relations between God and man ('for I do always those things that please him ' ; ' my meat is to do,' etc. 4**) ; ' I knew that thou liearest me always' (11''^). Thus salva- tion and eternal life is a knowledge of this truth (17'), an acceptance of the light. Moral con- tamination occasions mental and spiritual blindness — a doctrine inverting the Platonic dictum, which charges all moral contamination on mental inca- pacity. Inthesoteriolo^y of St. John the subjective c/)ndition is so hopelessly imperfect, and the need of visual faculty has become so imperative, that Christ is represented as restoring a man 'blind from birth' to the exercise of sight, and as commenting on the analogy between this imperial act and what He would do for humanity (9''"*'). The glory into which the light of the full revelation of God has ushered His own human nature is the very same light and glory which He supplicates for aU His own, and into which He will bring them.
But in close association with Life and Light appears the highest conception of the nature of God which has ever dawned on human intelli- gence, n God is love, the central essence is absolute self-surrender to the well-being of others. That 'God is Love,' and Love is of God, are the final outcome of the irradiation of St. John's mind with ' the light of the knowledge of the glory (the essential beauty) of God in the face of Jesus Christ.'